


Who (or What) Do Ya Love?

by h311agay



Series: Essays for School [9]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Essay, High School, MCR, Not all of the band is mentioned, Trigger Warnings, mention of 9/11, mention of alcoholism, mention of depression, mention of drug use, mention of suicide, my chemical romance - Freeform, prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-11
Updated: 2014-09-11
Packaged: 2018-02-17 00:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2290643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/h311agay/pseuds/h311agay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>I had to write this as an essay for English 11. The first essay of the year.</p><p>The prompt was "Assume that you are being paid by a magazine such as one of the following to write a feature article nominating a person or a product for an award. Using three criteria for subtopics (two if you can manage or four if you need more), persuade your readers of the praiseworthiness of this individual."</p><p>I went with Rolling Stone's Group of the Year.</p><p>Please critic and tell me what you thought.</p>
    </blockquote>





	Who (or What) Do Ya Love?

**Author's Note:**

> I had to write this as an essay for English 11. The first essay of the year.
> 
> The prompt was "Assume that you are being paid by a magazine such as one of the following to write a feature article nominating a person or a product for an award. Using three criteria for subtopics (two if you can manage or four if you need more), persuade your readers of the praiseworthiness of this individual."
> 
> I went with Rolling Stone's Group of the Year.
> 
> Please critic and tell me what you thought.

Different music appeals to different souls. Some go for loud and crazy music from the 80s and the 90s. Others find more taste in music that lack words, intrigued by the way orchestra or symphony bands blend together to make beautiful sounds. There are people that find themselves attracted to Pop music, drawn in by the simple and repeating beat, easy to follow along with but often with some deep lyrics. Others are more into the speak rhythm of rap music. Some enjoy the live performances of Operas or live musicals. Others find themselves gravitating towards the electric and wild energy of New Jersey’s biggest band since Thursday, My Chemical Romance. As _Rolling Stone_ magazine’s nominee for Group of the Year, _My Chemical Romance_ exhibits the following praiseworthy traits:  meaningful lyrics and a powerful backstory.

Meaningful lyrics are always important when trying to find the band that rocks your world. Many songs that have been written and performed by _My Chemical Romance_ approach subjects some artists would never dare to stray towards. Many of their songs, especially from the first album _I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love_ , talk about suicide, depression, and drug use. The lead singer, Gerard Way, even wrote a song about 9/11 after he witnessed it. _Skylines and Turnstiles_ is a very dark and angry piece reflecting Way’s emotions and feelings after those awful events. Many of the lyrics in the song are descriptions of what he saw. “And in this moment we can't close the lids on burning eyes. Our memories blanket us with friends we know like fallout vapors. Steel corpses stretch out towards an ending sun, scorched and black” (Way). Gerard calls the burning towers ‘steel corpses’, symbolizing how he is watching them go down before him as if they were living creatures, dying. Gerard sings about friends and loved ones dying, and how it broke the country. He also sings about the more immediate destruction such as the area itself. “This broken city sky like butane on my skin, stolen from my eyes” (Way). Butane is a very flammable gas and here he talks about the fire of the buildings and the broken sky line after the towers fell. He says it was ‘stolen’ because there was no way to prepare for such a disaster. Other songs by _My Chemical Romance, MCR,_  approach the subject of suicide. In _Headfirst for Halos_ , it not only approaches suicide but also drug use. “Well now I'm back in the middle of the day that starts it all. I can't begin to let you know just what I'm feeling. And now these red ones make me fly, and the blue ones help me fall. And I think I'll blow my brains against the ceiling” (Way). Here, Gerard sings about someone killing themselves. He uses references to the red pill and blue pill from _The Matrix_. The red pill symbolizes an unknown knowledge, getting an unnecessary question answered. In _Headfirst_ , the red pill symbolizes the action of suicide. It answers the taboo question of whether killing yourself will solve everything or not. The blue pill in _The Matrix_ is the option to live as you have been, no change. Not having the truth answered. In _Headfirst_ , the blue pill is refusing to kill yourself but not doing anything to fix how you’re living life. Throughout the entirety of the song, Gerard returns to those words. The pills also refer to Gerard Way’s drug use at the time. At the end of the song, the words ‘think happy thoughts’ are repeated eight times. Those three words are often repeated over and over to people with depression or suicidal thoughts. The same topics are also discussed in _Desert Song_ only this time the suicide was carried through. “We hold in our hearts the sword and the faith. Swelled up from the rain, clouds move like a wraith. Well after all, we'll lie another day. And through it all, we'll find some other way. To carry on through cartilage and fluid. And did you come to stare or wash away the blood? Well tonight, well tonight, will it ever come? Spend the rest of your days rocking out, just for the dead. Well tonight, will it ever come? I can see you awake anytime, in my head. Did we all fall down?” (Way). He is singing to someone who killed themselves about how he misses them and feels himself falling deeper into a dark hole because of the drugs and depression. These meaningful lyrics are a very important aspect of the music itself and in finding a good band.

A powerful backstory is always needed in order to exceed a normal band’s status. Gerard Way, from Newark, New Jersey, born in April of 1977, witnessed the horrible events of 9/11 from a ferry on the river. He had just been rejected by Cartoon Network for a TV and was musing over what to do with himself. He wrote the band’s first song, _Skylines and Turnstiles_ , after witnessing it and deciding to make a difference in the world. Unfortunately, for him, he was battling an on-going prescription drug abuse and depression. Most of the songs in _I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love_ revolve around drug use and death. "When we first started out I had a really big issue and a lot of my loved ones had a really big issue with the fact that I was totally in pain up there and there was a time when I tried to hurt myself off stage, but I got over that. Like, you should never want to hurt yourself. You should love yourself. Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself and become a new person and I think that that is going to be a lot of what the next record is about, not to plug it or anything. Like, it's going to talk about dying and coming back to become what you totally want to become. We are all becoming what we want to become" (Way). He pulled himself out of the drug use after the _Bullets_ tour ended. Drug use and depression weren’t the only bad things to happen to Gerard. “When I was fifteen, I got held up with a .357 Magnum, had a gun pointed to my head and put on the floor, execution-style. No matter how ugly the world gets or how stupid it shows me it is, I always have faith. The events after 9-11, the moments of tragedy when people show their colors and pull together, have renewed my faith” (Way). That moment could have been the end of Gerard, thus never creating _My Chemical Romance_. However, Gerard muscled past all of the trauma an event such as that could cause and later went on the become one of the most influential artists in the emo-punk scene. Gerard, however, was not the only band member to have difficulties in his life. His younger brother Mikey Way, born in September of 1980, also battled depression. "We used to drink a lot and we used to do some drugs. It was a means to an end: it was a way of getting from city to city. You had to build yourself off again. We got into a bad routine. I missed home and I was petrified to play, so I would get intoxicated. Then I had to find a way to wind down, so I'd take something to make that happen. Sometimes the drugs were like installing a shut-off switch in the back of my neck." (Kerrang!) Both brothers were hit hard before and during their careers in _My Chemical Romance_. It was their stories of their struggles and how they overcame them that make _MCR_ one of the most influential bands in the world.

Whether you listen to pop, rap, country, classic, rock, metal, jazz, opera, or punk, _My Chemical Romance_ offers a wide variety of music types to listen to. From their dark and daunting sounds in _I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love_ , to their angst-ridden and more upbeat tones of _Three Cheers For Sweet Revenge_ , all the way to the theatrical and heart-wrenching music from _Welcome To The Black Parade_ , traveling to what can only be called the Brit-Pop style of _Danger Days:  The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys_ , and ending with the mourning and sinking goodbyes of _Conventional Weapons_ , _My Chemical Romance_ is the perfect band for someone that needs messages and hope. These praiseworthy traits of _MCR_ ’s is what makes the band a great nominee for _Rolling Stone_ ’s Group of the Year award.

 

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**Work Cited**

My Chemical Romance, “My Chemical Romance Lyrics Skylines and Turnstiles.” azlyrics.com. n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014 [x](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mychemicalromance/skylinesandturnstiles.html)

My Chemical Romance, “My Chemical Romance Lyrics Headfirst for Halos.” azlyrics.com. n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014 [x](http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/mychemicalromance/headfirstforhalos.html)

My Chemical Romance, “Desert Song Lyrics – My Chemical Romance.” sing365.com. n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014 [x](http://www.sing365.com/music/lyric.nsf/Desert-Song-lyrics-My-Chemical-Romance/295C5AA4059A0C414825710200057904)

“Gerard Way – Quotes.” ImNotOkay.net. n.d. Web. 9 Sept. 2014 [x](http://www.imnotokay.net/my-chemical-romance/gerard-way/)

Stone, Rolling, “Future of Music:  Gerard Way.” rollingstone.com. 15 Nov. 2007. Web. 9 Sept. 2014 [x](http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/future-of-music-gerard-way-20071115)

Kerrang!, “Gerard & Mikey Way Interview - Kerrang! Magazine [Text}.” mcrkilljoysecuador.blogspot.com. 20 July 2011. Web. 9 Sept. 2014. [x](http://mcrkilljoysecuador.blogspot.com/2011/07/gerard-mikey-way-interview-kerrang_20.html)


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